SBNation.com User Blog: mighty.joe

Paging Randy Moss

mighty.joe — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:29:10 -0000

bring him to camp and pay him by the day. He was by all accounts a good mentor to our receivers last year. Hopefully one of the young guys would beat him out but he's not a bad option to come off the bench. Worst case scenario, he's competition for AJJ, Patton, etc. Best case scenario is what we saw vs Arizona last year. At this point our receiving corp is lacking for experience and who has more than Randy?

Let me expand on this a bit further. Assuming that our coaches are dissatisfied with our (experienced) depth at wide out, Randy offers 2 attributes which no one else can:

He knows the playbook
He already has some rapport with Kaepernick

The 2nd of those might be the most important as the only healthy receivers who can make such claims are Lockette and AJJ, neither of whom caught a pass in a game from Colin. Williams and Manningham are coming off injuries, Boldin and Patton are new to the team. While I'd be the first to admit that signing Moss to a pay to play contract is a band aid, the team has to make lemonade out of lemons now. We're not going to sign a player of Crabtree's talent and pedigree right now. Moss might not be the best wr available on the market but he's the only veteran who wouldn't need time to get up to speed.

Let me expand on this a bit further. Assuming that our coaches are dissatisfied with our (experienced) depth at wide out, Randy offers 2 attributes which no one else can:

He knows the playbook
He already has some rapport with Kaepernick

rather bizarre Brandon Jacobs story

mighty.joe — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 23:32:36 -0000

rather bizarre Brandon Jacobs story

Don't really know what to make of this.

Smith passes concussion test

mighty.joe — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 22:31:01 -0000

Smith passes concussion test

according to espn, Smith has passed his concussion test and will start on Monday vs the Bears.

Tired of all the post Rams negativity?

mighty.joe — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 01:14:04 -0000

Clearly an awful lot went wrong in this game but that's not what this post is about. Several things went right as a matter of fact and the season is far from lost. In fact a few other teams took bigger hits than our beloved Niners. The most significant positive is that despite how poorly we played we still gutted out a tie. That's right it was an ugly by the skin of the teeth 0.5 of a win. Remember 0.5 win means we gained on the Giants, Falcons, and Bears. Every NFC division leading team lost except San Francisco.

Secondly Colin Kaepernick stepped in and acquitted himself pretty well. In the 4th qtr he piloted the offense to 17 points and in overtime he brought the team within the brink of victory (best not to think about the foot or so that stood between Akers The Goat and Akers The Redeemed). In fact Colin was down right clutch once he got his feet wet. With the game on the line, in the final qtr he completed 7 of 8 passes and ran for a td. There were some fumbles in there that we luckily recovered but over all Colin proved himself a reliable back up and maybe more.

Thirdly Frank Gore fought hard for every yard often falling forward with 2 or 3 Rams draped around him. His explosive run around the end gave us the lead in the 4th and completed what seemed to be an improbable comeback. Frank seemed to get stronger as the game went on as well and shows little sign of wearing down like he did last year (even if he is suffering from aches and pains). I also would single out both Alex Smith and Crabtree who really seem to be gelling. Crabtree himself is looking as good as I've ever seen him with 3 tds and 10 receptions (on 11 targets) in the last 2 games during which he's averaging over 14 yds/catch. Alex has thrown 4 tds, 0 ints and only 2 incompletions in his last 2 games. On the other side of the ball Aldon Smith had 2 sacks resuming the strong work that he did with Justin Smith last year.

So while we should certainly hope for a better game (especially on defense and special teams) its a sign of a solid team that they didn't lose on 1 of their worst days.

The Tale of Two Quarterbacks

mighty.joe — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 17:15:27 -0000

"It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times" - Homer J. Simpson

There's been some talk about how the Niners have been on a quarterback roller coaster with Alex Smith. 1 week Smith is challenging records for completion percentage, 1 week he's throwing 3 interceptions in a single game. But I don't think a roller coaster is the appropriate analogy. What we have is more of a Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde situation. In 4 of the 8 games (@GB, Det, Buf, @Ari) we've enjoyed elite performances from Alex. In those games his stats are remarkable

76/100 969 yds 9.69 ypc 10 tds 0 ints 139 rating

extrapolate that across a season and you have a 40 tds, 0 ints and nearly 3900 yds. Its safe to say that, that level of production and efficiency is impossible to sustain. And of course every qb has some bad games but look at Smiths other four starts:

69/109 687 yds 6.30 ypc 2 tds 5 ints 68 rating

I won't bother to extrapolate that across a season but safe to say that few qbs have had such a bad hypothetical season for the simple reason that they'd be benched before they made it 16 games. Breaking it down, Smith has 4 games over 100 rating and 4 games of ~80 or less rating. There's nothing inbetween! Going back to the rollercoaster analogy if Smith was an amusement park ride the train would derail sometime between week 5 and 6 if not sooner.

One obvious question is what is causing this. Its not home vs away since 2 of Smith's great games were on the road and his 2 worst were at home. Its not September v October. 1 possible explanation is grass v turf. On grass Smith has a 110 rating and on turf he has an 80. Is it that the game speeds up too much for him? I don't know if I buy this as 2 of his worst games were at Candlestick's slow surface. Theres also an interesting break on the direction of pass plays. To the right he has a rating of 50 and in all other directions he's better than 95. What's up with that?

A more obvious explanation would be that he does poorly against better defenses. Thats only natural but that argument doesn't completely fit the data. By pass rating the Jets and Hawks are the 2 toughest defenses he's faced and those were "bad games". However, the Cards and Packers are the next 2 toughest pass defenses he's faced and he scorched both of them. His worst game by far was against the Giants and they're the 5th toughest team he's faced by this metric.

It would take more research than I'm willing to do to prove that this level of variability is unprecedented but lets compare him to a few of his peers in 2012. I'm grading based on pass rating which is admittedly imperfect but easy to look up. (100+ great, 85-100 good, 70-85 below average, 70- bad)

Peyton Manning- 6 great games, 1 below average, 1 bad
Aaron Rodgers- 4 great, 3 good, 2 below average
Matt Ryan- 6 great, 1 good, 1 bad
Alex Smith- 4 great, 3 below average, 1 bad
Big Ben- 3 great, 3 good, 2 below average
Tom Brady- 5 great, 1 good, 2 below average
Matt Schaub- 5 great, 1 good, 1 below average, 1 bad
Drew Brees- 4 great, 1 good, 3 below average
Josh Freeman- 4 great, 1 good, 2 below average, 1 bad
Bob Griffin- 3 great, 2 good, 3 below average

Oddly only Peyton and Alex have played every game outside of the 85-100 level. Making Smith's performance even stranger, his 2 peak performances have been all but perfect. Its also worth pointing out that in Smith's "great games" the niners are 4-0 and in his other 4 starts they're 2-2. Hopefully we see more "woo-hoo" than "'doh" in the second half but I'd be satisfied if we just got 8 games above average play.

Kellen Winslow cut by seahawks

mighty.joe — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 23:22:30 -0000

Kellen Winslow cut by seahawks

Looks like several of their free agent signings (Matt Flynn, Terrell Owens and now Kellen Winslow) haven't panned out very well.

Sando gives the passing offense a good review

mighty.joe — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:49:27 -0000

Sando gives the passing offense a good review

Reason for optimism? He's seen the other camps except Arizona and he says the 49ers passing game was "the most impressive."

ESPN debates old wide receivers

mighty.joe — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:10:31 -0000

ESPN debates old wide receivers

Rest easy Niners Nation, Skip "Always Wrong" Bayless is down on SF's Randy Moss. Meanwhile Christian Fauria makes a sensible and detailed argument in favor of Randy taking SF over the top.

Crabtree's reputation

mighty.joe — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 19:45:40 -0000

Crabtree's reputation

Matt Maiocco does a full piece on Michael's bay area rep. So what is the perception of Michael Crabtree? Is he a diva? Is he misunderstood? Does it matter at all?

More skepticism

mighty.joe — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 14:27:41 -0000

More skepticism

should we be worried? I think theres some faulty logic going on here. Specifically his catch 22 is more of a false dichotomy. To explain what I mean: he says that Alex Smith can't simultaneously maintain his mistake free passing and get impact play out of the upgraded receiving corp. In my opinion he doesn't have to attempt to do both. The team can absorb more interceptions if they are accompanied by a correpsonding leap in touchdown passes. These 2 events aren't mutually exclusive as he seems to think.

Film guru previews the nfc west

mighty.joe — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 18:17:19 -0000

Film guru previews the nfc west

I've always enjoyed Greg Cosell; its said that noone watches more film and I feel he gives a fair unbiased view. In a league where most serious analysis is done primarily by breaking down stats he's a bit of an outlier in that he tends to focus on what he sees (in both scheme and talent). Given that he's watched more football than all of us combined his opinion carries quite some weight even if its based on anecdotal evidence and subjective analysis. He's also a better than average writer and clearly loves the game.

In any case here's his preview of the nfc west which he dubs "contrary" b/c of its emphasis on running the ball and defense. Pointedly he doesn't even bother to mention the Rams.

The early reports on Peyton Manning

mighty.joe — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:00:43 -0000

The early reports on Peyton Manning

He was almost a 49er (or not depending on who you believe) and heres a story about how he looks in the early going. Obviously we won't know anything definitive until the regular season but this will be a fascinating story to follow. If you guys are anything like me you must have fantasized about what Manning could have done for SF but we'll never know now. However, if he can't cut it in Denver we might end up grateful. Is it possible that Alex Smith will have a better 2012?

Random Alex Smith thought

mighty.joe — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 04:17:26 -0000

Last year he faced the pass defenses ranked 1, 2, 4, 7 (the rams twice), 9, 10, 11 (the seahawks twice), and 12. He also saw the Cardinals near the end of the season when they were figuring out how to run their d. The worst pass defense he played against by yards was the Giants and I think we can agree that they were better than the yardage suggested (they were third in sacks). Next year the top passing defenses he will face as based off last years yardage rank 5, 7, 11, 17, 19, 22, and 25. He gets the benefit of seeing 7 of last years 8 worst passing defenses. Compare that to seeing 6 of the top 10 last year.